


So hard to keep my distance

by thetolkiengeek



Series: Angsty Exes AUs [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Back Together, Heartbreak, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance is heartbroken, M/M, angsty exes, based on a song by Walk The Moon, be grateful i almost made it an ambiguous ending, break-up, it's not really his fault though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 08:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14564676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetolkiengeek/pseuds/thetolkiengeek
Summary: It had been exactly a month since Lance and Keith broke up.You’d think after four whole years, after graduating and moving in together, after whispered confessions and gentle kisses, after all that, you’d think that the breakup would be loud and explosive, broken plates and words as weapons hurled against each other. Instead, it was gentle sighs and softly closing doors.---Or, the angsty break-up AU that no one asked for





	So hard to keep my distance

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so this happened
> 
> Based on the song Surrender by Walk The Moon. (So much so that any cool lines are probably from that song lol, please listen and die because it’s so good)

It had been exactly a month since Lance and Keith broke up.

You’d think after four whole years, after graduating and moving in together, after whispered confessions and gentle kisses, after all that, you’d think that the breakup would be loud and explosive, broken plates and words as weapons hurled against each other. Instead, it was gentle sighs and softly closing doors.

There was a part of Lance that still really wanted that kind of breakup, wanted to hide his heartbreak in anger. Instead, he just had to try so hard to keep his distance, try so hard not to fall apart every time he thought about how he had left his key on the kitchen counter, the metal on the granite surface clicking softly with a finality Lance didn’t want.

But he couldn’t do that to himself. Lance couldn’t let himself be with someone who didn’t love him back. So much of him wanted to fight back, to beg for one more minute, one more night. To change himself to fit whatever it was that Keith wanted.

So here he was, sitting on the floor, alone in a new living room with new furniture, the halls echoing with the absence of memories. Another night in his new skin, too raw to do anything but mechanically unpack his last box.

Hunk had offered to help, because of course he did, but Lance really needed this moment to himself. He needed the moment to need Keith, to miss him like a phantom limb.

And really, he’d been doing okay. It hurt, of course it hurt. How could it not? But through it all, he never said he’d regret it. No matter how bad it hurt, Lance would do it all over again, just the same. He’d have let Keith break him again if it meant he still would have kissed Keith under the stars that fateful night sophomore year, he still would have fallen off the edge, fallen in love with that broody mullet-headed idiot.

Lance opened the last box of his stuff, lifting up the plush blanket over top to reveal his collection of framed photographs.

Right on top, placed prominently, like this was the last picture Keith had put in the box, was what used to be Lance’s favorite picture. Lance had an arm slung around Keith’s shoulders, graduation cap as crooked as his smile, and Keith, in a rare moment of public affection, was kissing his cheek.

Seeing this picture should have broken Lance, should have shattered his heart all over again. He should be sobbing all alone in his empty apartment.

And some part of him felt that. But a larger part of him just ached with the need to see Keith again, to scream at him that he still needs him.

Lance felt himself get up, felt himself move towards the door, felt himself climb in his car and drive. He felt himself climb the all too familiar rickety stars, autopilot taking him to Keith’s (their) door.

He even made it so far as to lift his hand to knock before Lance stopped. What the hell was he doing? He was trying to keep his distance, and he had been doing so well. He couldn’t just knock on the door and expect to be taken back.

And so there, fist raised to knock on the door, Lance surrendered. He couldn’t be that person, he wasn’t going to be that ex who begged and pleaded and cried with someone who didn’t even want him. He’d be the best damn ex-lover of Keith’s life, even if that meant letting Keith go.

Lance lowered his hand slowly and sighed heavily, blinking away tears.

Just as he turned to go, the door flew open. Lance jumped back, his breath catching in his chest, because there Keith was, his hair wild and eyes wide. Oh god, he still looked so good, those indigo eyes just as beautiful as he remembered, pulling Lance in and making him want to stay.

“Lance?” Keith asked, sounding as bewildered as Lance felt.

Lance’s heart clenched. No. He couldn’t do this. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t stay.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t be here,” Lance whispered, and he turned and walked away before Keith could see the tears brimming in his eyes.

He made it halfway down the long hallway before—

“Wait, Lance!” Keith yelled. And Lance could hear how Keith’s voice was hoarse with emotion. What emotion? Lance had no idea.

Could he risk it? Could he risk hearing Keith tell him he left something in the apartment and to just wait a minute and he would get it for him? Could he risk Keith telling him he didn’t want him yet again?

Lance paused in the hall, thrown back to that moment when Keith told him it wasn’t going to work.

_“I’m sorry, what? Keith, you can’t be serious.”_

_Keith sighed, running his hands through his long hair like he’d done a thousand times before, the motion as familiar to Lance as the back of his hand. “I just can’t do this anymore, Lance. I can’t.”_

_“So that’s it then? Four years together, and we’re over? Just like that?”_

_Keith didn’t say anything, just refused to look Lance in the eyes._

_But the thing was, after four years, Lance knew Keith almost better than he knew himself. And Keith sounded so damn sure._

_Suddenly, things made sense. The waking up alone, how busy Keith was all the time, how he’d fallen asleep long before Lance._

_“Okay, just like that, I guess.”_

 

“Lance?” Keith called again, and Lance was suddenly once again thrust into the present.

Lance had stopped mid-step in the hallway, facing away from the door. His heart pounded with hope even as his head was screaming at him that he shouldn’t dare.

But Lance turned back anyway.

As soon as he looked at Keith, he knew he was fucked. He was Orpheus, turning back at the end of it all to check if Eurydice was really there with him, only to lose her for good.

Except Keith doesn’t disappear, forever out of his reach.

Instead, against all odds…

“Come inside?”

—

Epilogue

It wasn’t easy, getting back together with Keith. It involved a lot of talking and a lot of crying.

Keith tried his best to explain what happened, that even after four years, commitment still scared him. That one morning he woke up next to Lance, and he was so happy that he decided he didn’t deserve any of this.

Lance couldn’t pretend to understand all of it, but it was worth it, worth all the pain, and he’d do it all again.

It was worth it when they fought and laughed and cried and grieved. It was worth it when Keith got on one knee and promised that he really meant it this time, that he wanted to stay.

It wasn’t easy, but then again, great things never were.

**Author's Note:**

> I was so tempted to just leave it at “Come inside?” But I’m pretty sure my friend Jenna was gonna kill me if I did that, so thank her for the happy ending.


End file.
